English:
The painting combines events from several times during the battle.
Nelson
's famous signal
"England expects..."
flies from the
Victory
(11:50); the top-mizzenmast falls (13:00); the
Achille
is on fire in the background (late afternoon) and the
Redoutable
sinks in the foreground (following day).
Turner shows the Victory flying her signal flags from the main-mast, although in actuality they would have been flown from the
mizzen-mast
and were replaced with the signal for "engage the enemy more closely" once the battle commenced.